Obama Abandons the Defense of Marriage Act

President Barack Obama has decided that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and has directed the Department of Justice to quit defending it.

Supporters of gay marriage are declaring a victory. Detractors are up in arms.

There's one problem that only a few people seem to get, President Obama doesn't have the authority to do that. Only the Judicial Branch, and ultimately the Supreme Court, can declare an existing federal law unconstitutional and stop it's enforcement. It can be repealed, but only by Congress. The Executive Branch has no say in the matter until such a move passes both the House and the Senate. Representative Feinstein, as much I am not a fan of her, at least understands that and has decided to put forth a bill calling for it's repeal.

I personally believe she won't be able to get it to pass in the House of Representatives. At least I hope she won't.

This is just one more move by this administration to spit on the Constitution and try and take more authority that it actually has. I used to shake my head in disbelief at the people calling for President Obama's impeachment. Now I'm not so sure they're wrong.

My own feeling is that, regardless of the bogus rhetoric, marriage, at it's core, is about having children. It's a sacred institution and should only be between a man and a woman. Putting religious differences aside, there are many compelling secular reasons as well. If you don't think same sex marriage hurt anyone, you may need to take a second look.

Free Speech Dies in Austria

In Austria, a free speech activist has been charged with inciting religious hatred and faces three years in prison after criticizing Islam and Shariah law. Don't think it can happen here in America? With "political correctness" protecting everyone except those who agree with the current left-wing agenda through vilification of opposing ideas, I suspect it won't be long before jail time for peaceful dissent becomes real here, too.

Defending Sarah Palin's Blood Libel Comment

There are a ton of left-wing bloggers, vloggers, so-called journalists, and media moguls that are trying to call Sarah Palin stupid because she used the term “blood libel” in a video she recently posted to the web. The video was done in response to a cry from the media to respond to criticism that she was somehow connected to the events of the recent shootings in Tucson, Arizona.

The accusations were that the cross-hair symbols that used to appear on her website, “targeting” Democrat political leaders that she, and the Tea Party movement considered to be bad leaders they wanted to replace through the election cycle, were directly or indirectly responsible for pushing Jared Loughner into a shooting frenzy, killing a Federal Judge and a 9-year old girl, among others, as well wounding more than a dozen people including Representative Gabrielle Giffords (a Decmocrat). Such pundits have gone on, sometimes back-peddling and sometimes not, to include other right-wing celebrities as part of a “group of terrorists” that, these left-wing pundits claim, are spewing hate speech and inciting riots and violence.

Of course, the Democrats and the rest of the “left” never do that.

This is all nonsense, of course. Let's review some of the facts surrounding these accusations, even though the term “facts” may turn off a few liberal-leaning people in America these days.

• Jared Loughner, the man accused in the shooting, is a registered Independent, not a Republican.
• His own political leanings aligned more with the Zeitgeist movement than the Tea Party movement.
• Jared Loughner's problems with Representative Giffords started as early, or earlier, than 2007, before the Tea Party movement, shortly after Sarah Palin became the governor of Alaska and before she became prominent in the national political scene.
• It is likely that he suffered from schizophrenia and possibly paranoid psychosis.
• His friends say he did not watch television, listen to the radio, or take sides with any major political party.

How in heaven's name does an otherwise rational person get a picture of a guy who's gone off the deep end because of Sarah Palin and right-wing talk show hosts from that? It's ludicrous.

Now let's look that the timeline involved in the shootings, and Palin's response:

January 8: A tragic shooting in Tuscon takes place. Within minutes, some people in the media begin blaming Sarah Palin and demanding she respond.

January 9: Evidence about Jared Loughner begins to be revealed, showing that he had nothing to do with Sarah Palin or the Tea Party movement. The media continues to demand a response from her.

January 10: More evidence about the shooter is revealed, showing him to be mentally ill. The media continues to cry for a response from Palin.

January 11: Evidence comes out to show that the shooter didn't care about politics. The media continues to call for a response from Palin.

January 12: Sarah Palin responds via video posted at YouTube and her Facebook page. NBC Nightly News pulls out her “target map,” ties it to Gifford, and then focuses on two words of her response video, “blood libel,” and then accuses her of being anti-Semitic because of it. The rest of the media, and the blogosphere, go wild with continuing accusations and nonsense.

What kind of story is the media trying to create? Note that I said CREATE, not REPORT. There are no facts here linking any of Palin's activities to Loughner.

In other words, in order to attack Palin and the Tea Party movement, they're making shit up.

Are you still with me? Here's the part of Palin's response so many seem to have trouble with:

“But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn.”

Blood libel (also called blood accusation) refers to a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, usually Jews, murder children to use their blood in religious rituals and holidays.

In other words, in order to attack Jews and other religious/cultural groups, they're making shit up.

Her analogy is spot on. In this case, it's not an unfounded attack on a religion. It's an unfounded attack on a political ideology.

How many of you recognized the next step, already being taken by at least one government official, attacking free speech and the first amendment?

In the words of Arsenio Hall, “Just something to make you go, Hmmm ...”

The Oath Movie - Documentary of a Terrorist

Yesterday, I watched an astonishing film on POV, a PBS series of independent documentaries, called The Oath. It chronicles the rise of a “reformed” Al Qaeda operative Abu Jandal a.k.a. Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard. After leaving bin Laden's service, he was captured at the Pakistani border and became a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay facing war crimes charges. It's a little hard to follow, because it's not presented in exactly chronological order, but it ultimately leads to Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 attacks, and even the US Constitution.

Although the filmmaker was trying to show why American foreign policy creates hatred and uprisings in the middle east, and gain sympathy for them, she was much better at painting an accurate picture of why we need to take so-called “Islamic Extremists” seriously. She reveals what their thinking is, the lies they are told, and how they have no regard for anyone who doesn't think, live or believe as they do. There are also sections showing some of Al Qaeda's recruiting practices, and communications tactics.

What is most telling is the conversations Hamdan has with young militant Muslims. He acts like a mentor, or minor Imam, subtly giving them a philosophy of hatred for “infidels” and a mindset of action, all the while denying that he has ever asked them to kill Americans. What is most interesting is when he tells them to be careful, or cuts them off when they start asking questions that may be “too sensitive” and reveal these young men's connections, or aspirations, to terrorism.

While some who have seen the movie focus on the side of the story trying to humanize Salim Hamdan, and thus dismiss the film, they shouldn't. This is likely the most terrifying, and brutally truthful, look inside Al Qaeda I have ever seen. It reveals the actual war we are waging with them and other related militant groups. They see themselves as freedom fighters, as Holy Warriors. Make no mistake, there sole mission is to kill us. If the events portrayed, and the conversations recorded in this documentary doesn't wake you up to the real danger we are facing as a country, nothing will.